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- Convenors:
-
Clate Korsant
(University of Florida)
Angela D'Souza (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
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Short Abstract:
We survey a variety of pedagogical approaches concerning socio-environmental justice and decolonial possibilities. Disrupting epistemological dominance both inside and outside the K-12 classroom, we question the limitations and promise of new decolonial, pluriversal, and ecopedagogical practices.
Long Abstract:
We propose an interdisciplinary panel that will bring scholars of education together from a variety of backgrounds but focus primarily on indigeneity, decolonialism, socio-environmental (in)justices, and alternative pedagogical strategies. The panel is open to mixed methods approaches but is most interested in ethnographic interventions and participatory methods that challenge anthropocentric views, colonial legacies, and various normative structures of power. In a sense, we ask what are some possibilities towards a pedagogy of liberation, and how may decolonial practices disturb structural legacies of domination (whether between humans themselves or inclusive of the environment).
As an example, panelists may ask: how can Indigenous language revitalization and land-based education offer paths for praxis in spaces previously excluding youth, ongoingly colonized migrants, and Native people of this local land of early colonized U.S. to begin to reconcile with the first peoples or the land on which we are settlers? One panelist surveys two case studies: a nature-based school in Vermont, which developed an Abenaki language program within but subsequently outside of a 5-6th grade science class; and an out-of-school garden ecology program, which includes Taino intergenerational knowledge sharing and a critical Nipmuc lens applied to a community garden curriculum.
Such cases and broader discussions will be supported by other papers that help scholars understand the complex relations between pedagogical practice with youth and more general discussions on epistemological understandings, radical or alternative pedagogical practice, viable pathways for decolonialism, more-than-human ethics, and the limitations therein for K-12 educators.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 26 June, 2024, -Clate Korsant (University of Florida)
Paper short abstract:
By examining several ethnographic vignettes of games, songs, and activities for students, I wonder whether the learning strategies are indeed about liberation from more mainstream or colonial models; or are they embodied learning practices that reassert the dominance of “sustainable development.”
Paper long abstract:
Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula, an area with 2.5% of global species biodiversity and currently covered by land use restrictions over 80% of its territory, has seen increased interest in ecotourism given the popularity of Corcovado National Park’s lowland rainforest. This biodiversity “hotspot” will appear in national and international or social media sources for various reasons: a narcotrafficking boat has stranded while tourists gawk; an exclusive hotel secures a spot on a honeymoon wish list; or the “wild” and “natural” place is promoted to North American and European gap-year students for volunteer opportunities. In any case, the area buzzes; it’s protected; it’s known as an off-the-beaten-track conservation success story; and, in a country where tourism dominates foreign currency exchange, economic undercurrents beneath activism, science, and sustainability-minded conservation are quite pronounced.
Here, learning about ecological conservation is elevated to great importance, not only during special environmentally themed events, but also in the K-12 classroom. Students are taught in elementary school and onwards of the ecological importance of their region. Some of these teaching methods take the form of ecopedagogy – a method thought to be modeled upon Paolo Freire’s radical teachings but meant to include ecological sustainability and the inherent value of non-human life as paramount. By examining several ethnographic vignettes of games, songs, and activities for students, I’d like to lead an inquiry into whether the learning strategies are indeed about liberation from more mainstream or colonial models; or are they embodied learning practices that reassert the dominance of “sustainable development.”
Jennifer Lee O'Donnell (Texas State University)
Paper short abstract:
This talk explores the role of feminist practices within urban farm movements in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and their impact on democratic education.
Paper long abstract:
In this talk I will discuss the interplay between feminism and urban agricultural movements in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and their implications for democratic education. Central to the study is La Granja Puerta del Sol, an urban farm managed by Dani Ramirez, who identifies as a member of the transgender community. Their farm transcends the conventional scope of urban agriculture by challenging gender norms and promoting equity within its operational model.
Applying Michel Foucault's concept of freedom and Linda Zerilli's feminist practices of freedom as analytical lenses, I examine the farm's commitment to sustainability, care ethics, and participatory governance. Its daily workings, I discuss, extend beyond agricultural production by advocating for food justice and fostering a culture of do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos, thereby creating a fulcrum for community learning and activism. Under Ramirez's guidance, it melds urban agriculture’s core principles with a pedagogy attuned to inclusivity and environmental sustainability.
The findings reveal that La Granja Puerta del Sol is a microcosm of feminist democratic education, potentially informing broader educational strategies. The discussion will highlight how the practices at La Granja Puerta del Sol reflect feminist practices of freedom, disrupt established gender binaries, and reinforce community resilience through a model of shared leadership and decision-making. It will also assess the farm's potential as a transformative educational framework that advocates for democratic values in schools and communities.
Geoffrey Nwaka (Abia State University, Uturu, Nigeria)
Paper short abstract:
Climate science needs to integrate the traditional knowledge of local communities in Africa. Researchers and the development community ought to recognize the value of different knowledge systems, and the need to promote inter-cultural dialogue.
Paper long abstract:
African knowledge systems have for a long time been undervalued because of the dominance of Eurocentric mindsets and practices. Africa contributes least to, but suffers the most from the negative impacts of climate change. The industrialized countries unjustly blame the poor countries of the Global South for using natural resources in an unsustainable way; but most traditional African societies have deeply entrenched ideas and practices about conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources because their livelihood depends largely on the land and on the stability of the ecosystem. They believe that land and other forms of nature are sacred, and are held in trust by the present day users on behalf of dead ancestors and future generations. These local communities have over the years developed intricate systems of forecasting weather systems in order to prevent and mitigate natural disasters; traditional techniques of soil management, pest and disease control, adopting suitable crop and animal varieties, and so on. The unprecedented scale of climate change today may have undermined the reliability of many traditional indicators for predicting the pattern of climate variability, and techniques for preventing and adapting to climate induced natural disasters. There is therefore a need for those who hold and use traditional knowledge to partner with scientists and other stakeholders, in a mutually respectful way, to co-produce updated knowledge for better climate risk management. The paper considers various forms of epistemic partnerships, and inter-cultural dialogue that can improve learning about the climate crisis and its management in Africa.
Rosita Henry (James Cook University)
Paper short abstract:
Indi Kindi delivers a learning curriculum that integrates place-based First Nations approaches with mainstream Australian approaches to early childhood education. This paper addresses the question of socio-environmental justice through a deep description of Indi-Kindi as a decolonial pathway.
Paper long abstract:
Indi Kindi is an education program designed by a Not-For Profit Organisation (Moriarty Foundation) for children up to five years old. The program is currently offered in four remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory of Australia. The program delivers a learning curriculum that integrates place-based Aboriginal approaches with mainstream Australian approaches to early childhood education. This paper questions decolonial pathways and socio-environmental justice through a deep description of Indi-Kindi.
Indi Kindi is usually delivered outdoors in a place-based, multi-sited manner, by local Indigenous staff, all women. The staff decide on where to go in response to community politics, customary protocols, and seasonal environmental factors. While the learning experience is structured via a book reading and singing session in English and the local Aboriginal languages, the children are also encouraged to engage freely in imaginative, sensory play activities, and at every session, are offered a cooked meal and fresh fruit.
Efforts have been made to formally assess the value and effectiveness of Indi Kindi in terms of its impact on the educational development, health and wellbeing of individual children; and on the community by providing opportunities for the employment of Indigenous staff and so on. However, philanthropists and government funding agencies rarely consider the value of programs such as Indi Kindi for more broadly addressing coloniality and its continuing structures of violence. This paper argues that Indi Kindi needs to be understood as a “pathway to decolonisation” in that it fosters decolonial practices “that disturb structural legacies of domination”.
Angela D'Souza (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
Paper short abstract:
How do youth come to embody their places in community? How does compulsory U.S. American public education unbraid reciprocal relations between humans and non-human beings? This paper explores epistemological and pedagogical alternatives to current environmental science and ethnic studies programs.
Paper long abstract:
This paper assumes that the knowledge reinforced and the pedagogies employed in public education in the U.S. are intertwined with the objective of fashioning citizens beholden to and complicit in reproduction of settler nation-states and logics. With this premise, the author asserts that a justification for international participation in such a world order is the nation-state's interest and capacity to continue as a naturalized instrument of governance, competing on a global market scale. A globalized "free" market presupposes inter-connected economies, which position all resources of colonized lands and developed and developing waterways--including species that humans consume as food--as commodities for exchange in a currency market.
In this day and age, how do young people come to find and embody their places in community, sometimes requiring the contestation--if not denial--of knowledge transmitted at home and in out-of-school communities? How does formal socialization, e.g., compulsory U.S. public education, work to sever strands of interdependent, intimate, reverent relations between humans and the more-than-human world, or non-human relatives? If science class as early as elementary school is framed only in the lineage of Eurocentric Enlightenment founding fathers, with its contemporary objective being the technological advancement of military, medical, and human-centric superiority--on Earth and beyond--how do teachers include Indigenous knowledges, honor Elders as educators, and learn from Indigenous languages without unjust appropriations of epistemologies? This paper explores epistemic and pedagogical alternatives utilized in an after-school ecology program, concluding with a call for educators to reground ourselves in wider ecological contexts and [re]turn to Indigenous knowledges.